Better to Recognize Spam as a Threat, Says Cisco

As per networking giant Cisco, unwanted e-mail (or spam), which has traditionally been regarded as a nuisance, has now become one of the biggest mode of malware distribution, as per the news published by PCPRO on April 27, 2010.

Swastik Bihani, Cisco IronPort product manager, revealed that 85% of spam seen include one or the other kind of link, and an increasing number of those links are directing to malicious sites, reported PCPRO on April 27, 2010.

Several junk e-mails may be dispatched from the computers of unaware users itself. Cybercriminals are using botnets to send out spam e-mails from the systems of unsuspecting users.

The reports state that botnets drop spam-distributing viruses on e-mail recipients' PCs. In such a way, spammers can successfully send bulk of unwanted spam messages without divulging the return address of their own.

Bihani further explained that the global presence of e-mail perfectly suits the cybercriminals to launch cyber attacks. However cybercriminals try to exploit any system for their malicious intentions, but the omnipresence of e-mail proves especially beneficial for them.

Cisco estimations suggest that 30 spam items are received per day by the e-mail address of an average individual, but Bihani was certain that the danger of spam could be beaten. For this, he stressed that the awareness of end-users is a must, while for smaller companies and enterprises, SPF is also recommended. He said this while referring to Sender Policy Framework allowing e-mail servers to verify incoming e-mail's origin.

Senior security researcher Henry Stern of Cisco System's IronPort team said that spammers are pretending to offer users according to their wish, as per the news published by Bradenton.com on April 21, 2010. In this series, the newest idea is to tailor the spam via social engineering. Scammers can track the browsing, online shopping and social networking habits of the users and then use the information gathered to send them customized messages. This can also be done just by knowing the source of e-mail address of the user.

Related article: Better Business Bureau Warns Users against Twitter Money Making Scams

» SPAMfighter News - 5/7/2010